Access Come Back To Afghanistan: My Journey From California To Kabul Conceived By Said Hyder Akbar Displayed In Manuscript
book is not perfect, Its not remarkably wellwritten, it didnt elevate my soul into a new plane of human existence, but I couldnt put it down, Its certainly representing a specific male, Pashtun perspective, And, the obvious, its quite outdated for, This book came out more thanyears ago, However, Ive struggled to understand post/Afghanistan, This books personal narrative helped me to understand the landscape a lot better, Afghanistans politics and history is something Ive always wanted to entrench myself in and learn more about and this book felt like a good stepping stone in my learning journey.
Hyder is a most exceptional teenager, He speaks English, Dari and Pashtu, and spends his summer vacations helping his father rebuild Afganistan, That he will meet his college language requirement by studying French, . . as though the world is crying for French translators, . . is only one anomaly of his eventful young life,
Hyder describes the dangerous, grinding work of rebuilding Afganistan, I hope Young and SeniorAkbar can keep enthusiasm because their country needs them and they are in a unique position to serve,
I believe there is more consensus in the US for Afgan assistance than almost any issue out there, but Hyder doesn't encounter much reconstruction, Everytime we see the US, it's a military presence, and the encounters are less than desireable,
Failures on the micro level Soldiers give a village a pipe so that they can build a water supply Karsai's US bodyguards contradict him in front of others Hyder's dad, governor of a province, close personal friend of Karsai, father of American citizens, has to be searched to enter a US military base.
On the macro level is the fate of Abdul Wali, It's unclear why he's presumed to have information or to be guilty of something, But, Adbul Wali, father ofchildren,years old can't tell us why or how he died in US custody, setting back credibility for the US and Karsai, We meet people who lose loved ones in what is commonly called "collateral damage" or "friendly fire",
We drive with Hyder through roadless places and climb surreptitiously into Pakistan, He recounts the nuances of the first post Taliban Loya Jirga missling the big point the female reps, We get insight into how a tiny country manages an international media, the appointment processes, how UN workers will accept triage in its voting registration process if local officials let them, the legacy of the comminist era, warlords and notables.
We learn how opportunitsts like Malik Zarin play the US troops like a fiddle, . . just call your enemies Taliban!
Afganistan only makes headlines when there is an explosion, Where is our tax money going What do we have to show for the postTaliban dollars and human lives that have been spent HOW do we support Karsai, his cabinet and his governors In this book, the only Americans are in the military or with the press.
WHAT are they doing over there
This book should be required reading for any soldier or official in Afganistan or Iraq and be highly recommended for anyone even thinking about nation building anywhere in the world.
We all need to know a little more about Afghanistan in today's world and need to understand why it is not so easy to just go and solve their problems.
Hyder does an excellent job of beginning to bridge the gap between Americans and Afghans and how the problems and their solutions are often not what they seem, There is good and bad on both sides and many of us cauth in between just trying to live life, Wow, I am so glad to finally be done with this book, It started really, really slow for me I didn't enjoy the firstpages or so at all, When it did pick up and I started to get engaged, I didn't have any time to read,
For those of you who don't know, this is the true story of a California/Afghani teenager he was born in a refugee camp in Pakistan, raised mostly in California.
Although his parents are Afghani, he's never been to Afghanistan, . . until, that is, the Taliban is toppled after/and his father returns to his homeland to help rebuild, Starting when he's I think, Hyder spends his summer vacations in Afghanistan with his father, acting almost as an unofficial spokesperson for the government, It's truly fascinating, and I can't even fathom that level of dedication from a teenager, Can you honestly imagine an American teenager, having grown up in another country after his/her family fled America for a safe environment, having never even seen the country, actually coming back to the country to rebuild it after overyears of war
That said, it was a hard book to get through.
For one thing, there are way too many people in this book and it's really hard to keep everyone straight, but I guess I can't really complain about that since it's nonfiction.
Eh, while I am glad I read this book, I won't be voting for it for the Common Book, . . Said Hyder's book is greatly accessible for those who know little to nothing about Afghanistan and its history since the Soviet occupation, but are looking to get an introduction, The emotions of this piece range from heartfelt to startling, Seriously formative Afghan political events of the earlys are filtered through the lens of an American teenager who feels deeply connected to his family's homeland and expresses both hope for Afghanistan's future and frustration with the road to getting there.
I started this book prior to the US's recent, disastrous exit, and finished it afterward, Of course, much has changed between when this book was published inand the present moment, but as someone who was a child during the time of the author's writing, I can say that I feel more prepared to keep up with news out of Afghanistan after readingand keeping in mind that the American media will never be able to tell the whole story.
I really enjoyed this book, but there were a few things that disappointed me,
The author almost completely ignores the existence of women, I understand that the sexes are segregated in Afghanistan, but after growing up in the US and interacting with women there daily, shouldn't the absence of women evoke comment I feel like he ignored the plight of women, to the story's detriment.
At one point, his mom gets mad at him for this, but even so, he makes no effort to take women into account,
Despite this failing, the book is a fascinating look at politics in Afghanistan, and some of the stories presented in it are horrifying and heartbreaking, He does a good job showing us the contradictions in Afghanistan for instance, he repeatedly says that the people there are tired of war, but he gives numerous examples of blood feuds and vengeance killings and tribal violence.
You would think that people who are tired of war would also be tired of violence in general, but from this Come Back To Afghanistan's POV anyway that doesn't seem to be the case at all.
It gives the reader some food for thought,
It was surprising how little culture shock happened, You would think growing up in the US, the author would have absorbed more of the US's morality and mores, but his US roots didn't seem to alter his perception of Afghanistan much at all.
The main shock he experiences seems to be food poisoning, which he gets repeatedly, After a while I stopped feeling bad for him, Dude. Stop eating sketchy things.
But anyway, I was expecting to hear a lot of internal conflict about living in Afghanistan with an American worldview, but I didn't get that at all, The author jumps right into Afghanistan and accepts all the cultural differences with ease, judging foreign men for wearing shorts like heathens, never noting the absence of contact with women, etc.
I want to know more about why it was so easy for him to do this, Was it because his parents strictly controlled his exposure to Americanism If so, I want to know what that was like, And what was it like returning to America after living in Afghanistan Did he change as a result If not, why not
In sum, I did think this was a very wellwritten book, and I would recommend it for anyone who wants a closer look at political life in Afghanistan under Karzai.
Just know that you aren't going to read a story about the angst of being caught between two cultures, That's not what this is about,
I read this book almost immediately after I read Kite Runner and just as immediately realized how foolish that was, CBtA is based on Said Akbar's actual experience as the son of an Afghani politician and is thus much less malleable than Kite Runner, It's no less thoughtprovoking though it's heartbreaking to think about what has happened to this formerly beautiful country in the past few decades, Interesting perspective on the difficulties facing development in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan in the early years after the liberation from the Taliban, It also shows the confused political situation in that area,
It is written by a very young Afgan Expat raised primarily in California, and the list of Afgans that are mentioned are a who's who of the russian war Jihad.
It is refreshing to see an Afghan perspective on the situation, Like reports on this or any subject it is important to keep in mind what the authors motives are and how acurate his vision of events are, In this case he is pretty clear about what his motives are, and because of his youth, and the obvious hero worship he holds many of his fathers friends, It is an interesting read, though neither overly complex nor deep, Now this is good nonfiction, An AfghaniAmerican teen who has never been to Afghanistan before decides to go back right after/despite highly dangerous circumstances to help rebuild the government DANG, that is brave, Not only that, he gets a front row insider's view of the nationbuilding or lack thereof because his father, a high level Afghani official who has been spending the lastyears in exile selling hiphop clothing to Californians gets a job as
the governor of Kunar and the personal spokesperson for President Karzai.
This is the best explanation of post/Afghanistan I have ever read or seen, The historic events, political context, and the author's personal relationships with all the players were riveting and so complex, this is a lovely book written about afghanistan,
i enjoyed reading this book,
it is about a person called said hyder akbar who is living in california,
it is also by susan burton,
he is obsessed with the country afghanistan since he was born,
he is actually seventeen years old and he wants to see afghanistan,
his father is the governer of a kunar which is a province in rural afghanistan,
he then comes to afghanistan from california and comes to kabul,
he is really happy to be over here and falls in love with the place,
this happens after/.
it is about alqaeda and the taliban,
there are details about the author ahmed rashid and the afghan women sharbat gula,
there are details given about afghanistan,
he meets the president of afghanistan who was hamid karzai
it is about osama bin laden and about the war in iraq,
there are several attempts made on the life of hamid karzai and his father,
he goes to california off and on and comes back to afghanistan,
he tries to find his roots here and discover what he can discover,
in the end he goes back to america,
in the end he goes to tora bora where osama bin laden is said to have hidden,
this is how the story unfolds, not the best writing ever
but has a much more engaging plot than many
stars Interweaves the personal journey of the author that of a teenager struggling to find his identity in his parents' homeland with his travels, which take him from palaces to prisons and from Kabul to the borderlands.
This book presents an account of political and civilian life in postTaliban Afghanistan, Said Hyder Akbar' loves U, his California home, his family, and Afghanistan, After/, Hyder's father, Said Fazel Akbar, sells his HipHop clothing store in Fremont and returns to Afghanistan, later to be elected Governor to the Kunar Province, Hyder relays stories from two full summers spent in Afghanistan after high school, His connections allow for an unparalleled introduction: he dodges bullets and assists the Americans in a firefight, meets Hamid Karzai on numerous occasions, watches a Loya Jirga, an election, acts numerous times as a translator for American soldiers, and is given a shocking perspective on Abu Ghraib.
After initially adjusting to the worldsth poorest country, Hyder begins to witness signs of Afghanistan rebuilding itself after Russian and Taliban occupation, I'll be watching for evidence of Hyder's future work to bring democracy to his country, This book was great.
Started off wanting to put it down, ended up enjoying it, Glad I read. Interesting things I didn't know about Afghanistan, Hyder is an AfghanAmerican whose father sells his California retail store to return to Afghanistan to work in politics and help build a new government,
Hyder is able to visit Afghanistan for the first time, and the book is mostly about the two summer he spends there as a teenager whose father holds an important position.
Some reviewers have mentioned this book starts out slow, but I didn't feel that at all I thought it was riveting from Chapter One, It probably didn't hurt that Hyder is from Concord, CA where I lived while following the California dream
Going back and forth between the Bay Area and Afghanistan gives Hyder a unique perspective, as does his interaction with other top Afghan officials including the President thanks to his father's position.
There's also the stories of Hyder's older relatives and the horrors of the Communist regime,
I learned so much about the Afghan people like how they don't really mark the passage of time and it's difficult to find anyone who actually knows how old they are and, I hope, a small understanding of what they've been through.
Said Hyder's uncle:
The US bombing is like a fireworks show, People go up to their rooftops and watch it, When the Russians came, they'd put down their helicopters, start shooting, and we would run from them, So compared to that, this is not that bad, "
SO good so far three chapters in! I should have read this so much sooner, but better late than never! Hyder grew up in LA, having escaped with his family when the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
He returned after their fall, to work alongside his father who was going through his own transition from a leader in the struggle against the Soviets, to the owner of a Californian hiphop clothing store, then a governor of Kunar, a province in the west.
Hearing the story of Afghanistan's recent history through the eyes of someone our age, coming of age in a massive transition is so remarkable, Plus, to read such a remarkable book written by a dear friend is SO special!,